Friday, April 19, 2019

Two Steps Forward, 5 Steps Back

I want to play D&D and be able to include my girlfriend. She's a Pathfinder player. I tried to run B/X D&D for her back in December, and she rejected it outright.

After a lot of discussion, we determined that 5E might be the only halfway point between my D&D and her Pathfinder.

(If you're of a mind to recommend that I try Pathfinder, I did. I've played it. I've GMed it. I'd rather eat broken glass than do either ever again.)

A colleague of mine is currently running a "Waterdeep Adventures" campaign, based around the current Dragon Heist campaign from Wizardzzzz. We joined up, partly to spend some time together during my busy season, and partly because I feel guilty at having ducked every single game invitation that my colleague has extended to me for the last three years.

Did I mention that I think Forgotten Realms is a.) incredibly boring* and b.) super overrated?

*Well, Zakhara and Kara-Tur are pretty cool, but I prefer their standalone iterations.

Anyway, I will admit that the D&D Beyond digital tools are pretty neat, though it means that I have to use a device to access my character sheet for awhile. Early 5E levels blow by so fast I was having to reprint my character sheet every week.

The DM has endeavored to make it a bit of an urban sandbox mixed with a "town parked on top of a dungeon" type setup, though I'm not sure how much of this is his own doing and how much of it is the module/campaign book.

I still stand by my assertion that 5E is D&D with kid gloves on. I think my best summation is Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction when he says "We should be fuckin' dead, my friend."

In the meantime, I am considering a game of Ghosts of Saltmarsh featuring the various people in my household. (I've got a pretty sitcom-esque living situation right now.) If nothing else, it'll be a nice change of pace from my weekly PbtA game.